Reaching Māori and Pasifika smokers to meet 2025 target of 5%

Chelsea Richardson (from left), Manaaki Ora Stop Smoking team leader, Associate Minister of Health Casey Costello and Segina Te Ahuahu, Manaaki Ora group manager. Photo / Aleyna Martinez

Segina Te Ahuahu is proud her son is growing up travelling in a car that has never been smoked in – something she thought would never happen when she was growing up.

Te Ahuahu is the group manager or kaihautu tipu ora at Rotorua’s Manaaki Ora Trust, which provides smokefree support, among other wellbeing services.

She said she was a heavy smoker for over 20 years and felt proud her work at the trust helped break the habit for three generations of smokers in her family.

There is one year and four months left to reach the goal of the Stop Smoking 2025 Action Plan of having fewer than 5% of Kiwis smoking by the end of 2025. It was born from a 2019 inquiry into the tobacco industry and the effects of tobacco use on Māori.

Manaaki Ora’s roll is 70% Māori. Smokers wanting to quit or who have tried multiple times could always come back and receive support without a GP referral.

Te Ahuahu said its patients had succeeded in smoking outcomes using vapes as a “harm reduction approach”.

The team connected with potential quitters at events like Te Matatini and offered stop-smoking resources like patches and gum when patients attended diabetes appointments.

Segina Te Ahuahu (left) and Chelsea Richardson from Manaaki Ora, Rotorua. Photo / Aleyna Martinez

Manaaki Ora stop-smoking team leader Chelsea Richardson said she had whānau affected directly and indirectly by smoking, and had lost people to smoking-related illnesses.

“A majority of our practitioners here had whānau passing away from smoking-related illnesses,” Richardson said.

The group’s work to decrease whānau smoking numbers was a wrap-around service and it would meet with “the whole whānau” if it was needed.

The annual New Zealand Health Survey 2022/23 found adult smoking across all ethnicities had declined with 6.8% of adults being daily smokers in 2022-23, down from 8.6% the previous year.

It found smoking remained heaviest in communities classified as “most deprived” but that smoking numbers there had also decreased to 10.7%.

Daily smoking for adults in the least deprived neighborhoods dropped to 3.1%.

Richardson said she was determined to meet the stop-smoking goals for 2025 and said it caused ”māuiui” to her loved ones, meaning to be weary or sick.

“Our whānau and whakapapa is being impacted by the effects of smoking,” Richardson said.

“Smoking is just one aspect of what is happening in someone’s life but if we can just get in and shift that, then we know there’s going to be positive change,” she said.

“We’re working for our community and we’re removing barriers,” Richardson said.

Associate Minister for Health Casey Costello was in Rotorua last week asking local providers what they thought would be the best approach for moving the last portion of the population still smoking.

Some had been working on the national target for over 30 years, Te Ahuhahu said.

In the last three years, 229,000 people had quit smoking – 79,000 of them were Māōri adults.

Māori smoking rates had fallen to 17.1% and Pasifika smokers to 6.4%, according to the 2022-23 New Zealand Health Survey.

Costello said her “inherited” portfolio would have achieved smoking cessation targets “by doing nothing” if trends continued.

She said that would not be across all population groups, however.

“We want to make sure we’re targeting high-needs groups and make sure they’ve got the support and services they need to quit.

“We need a big energy push into Māori and Pasifika communities,” she said.

Associate Minister of Health Casey Costello expects a bill to prosecute businesses selling vape products unlawfully to be introduced in Parliament by the end of the month. Photo / Aleyna Martinez

Excise tax increases were first introduced in 2010 she said, acknowledging criticism she received when she cut the excise tax on vape products to 50% in July.

“In amongst all the noise we forgot to acknowledge that we’re almost there.”

Vaping has been a “big part” of the stop-smoking journey, she said.

A bill to prosecute vape retailers and businesses for selling vape products unlawfully would be introduced to Parliament at the end of August and she expected it to be law by the end of the year.

Current legislation would only allow those physically behind the counter to be prosecuted under the law.

“We want to make sure that what we put in place can be enforced, that it’s suitable and that it’s not going to create unintended consequences.”

She also said a stream of work to help those ready to quit vaping would be developed next.

Aleyna Martinez is a multimedia journalist based in the Bay of Plenty. She moved to the region in 2024 and has previously reported in Wairarapa and at Pacific Media Network.